


cobwebs

by tkreyesevandiaz



Series: settle [2]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety Attacks, Army, Dissociation, Don't Have to Know Canon, Emotional Eddie Diaz, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Graphic Description, Graphic Descriptions of Injuries, M/M, Minor Character Death, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Not an Original Character, POV Eddie Diaz, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Evan "Buck" Buckley, Sleepy Cuddles, Worried Evan "Buck" Buckley, traumatic flashbacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:25:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23210122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tkreyesevandiaz/pseuds/tkreyesevandiaz
Summary: Eddie’s mind felt murky, the flashback clinging to him like cobwebs. Ironic, because cobwebs would've symbolized an untouched memory, but this was a recurring one, one that his mind somehow couldn't stop relieving over and over again.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Series: settle [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1668661
Comments: 30
Kudos: 251





	cobwebs

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE HEED THE WARNINGS IN THE TAGS. I've written them below too.
> 
> TW: PTSD-mentions, flashbacks, dissociation descriptions, descriptions of anxiety, lingering anxiety, descriptions of panic.
> 
> Please let me know if I've missed anything! Stay safe y'all!
> 
> This was encouraged by @tarialdarion on AO3 so thank you! Again, Aisha looked this over for me :)
> 
> This is my first time writing an actual army experience for Eddie so let's see how this goes! :D

_There was dust._

_Eddie panted hard, tongue thick in his mouth as he ducked through a shielded cave to protect his cargo against the barricade of shots that were being slung their way. Around him, the piercing sounds of rifles ricocheted through the air, swiping through the hefty current._

_The dust covered everything, including his eyes. He swiped an impatient hand over them as he rustled through his pack, working as fast as he could while ignoring the burn. The weapons he was mandated to carry felt cold and heavy against his skin, even through the blistering heat and several layers of uniform. Later, it would be one of the things that he’d work on for_ months _to prevent himself from getting triggered._

_Shawn let out a gritted sound of agony as Eddie turned him from his stomach onto his side and cut his uniform away to take a better look at the hole in his lower limb. He’d been shot clean through the thigh, and thankfully there wasn’t a bullet to dig out in the field._

_The worst part of it was that the bullet had nicked his femoral artery, the main blood vessel that provided major blood supply to the thigh and leg. As a result, blood soaked through the surrounding fabric too, rushing too fast for it to properly clot. He’d have to plug it._

_The thing about being an army medic was that you couldn’t afford three seconds to think about what to do next; you only had the time and sense to make one decision and pray it was the right one. Eddie had no time to think, not when he could sense enemies across the war zone. If it came to it, he’d have to leave Shawn to defend the post._

_“Just do it, Diaz.” Shawn’s teeth were clenched tightly. Eddie’s fingers worked quickly and steadily to pull out gauze from the pack. He quickly pressed a cloth to Shawn’s mouth to keep him silent as Eddie pushed the gauze into the wound._

_The entire thing probably didn’t take more than thirty seconds, but they were those thirty seconds that would brand themselves into his mind forever. He could hear Shawn’s screams of pain as if they were right in his ear, but despite it, Eddie kept at it._

_Shawn and him had been friends since boot camp. They’d enlisted together, trained together, got posted together and re-enlisted together. Now here the pair of them were, Eddie trying his best to save Shawn’s leg from having to be amputated completely. Plugging the wound was the only option they had to make sure he didn’t develop an infection that’d lead to amputation._

_“Listen, if I don’t...there’s a letter in my bunk. For Millie.” Shawn’s words were ragged with pain but they were determined. He forced Eddie to look at him, the latter only now realizing that his vision had blurred from tears._

_“You’re going to make it, asshole.” As Shawn coughed, Eddie furrowed his eyebrows at the blood dripping from his mouth._

_“Wait-” He turned the rest of Shawn’s body so the man was lying on his back, only to note with a dreadful sinking that there was a bullet stuck in his chest wall as well, the red wetness having been concealed by the brown dust that caked them. “How did I not-”_

_“This isn’t your fault. I hid it from you,” Shawn said weakly, holding up his hand. Eddie’s vision tunneled with rage and panic as he realized that his friend had kept his hand placed over the injury. He’d been hiding the wound from him and because there was no exit wound, the spread of blood wasn’t as noticeable as the one in his thigh._

_“Are you fucking insane?” Eddie barked, already moving to do something about it. Tweezers, patches, disinfectants, etc._

_“It punctured a lung, Diaz. You can’t heal this in the field. Not with people closing in on us.” The two men kept their voices at a whisper but sweat dripped down Eddie’s spine once he heard footsteps that sounded far too close for comfort. “You need to stop them from coming in here; I don’t want to die not being able to defend myself against them. Please, Eddie.”_

_They were inching towards them._

_With a long line of curses and his heart pounding faster in his chest, Eddie gripped his M4 rifle tight and pushed away from his friend. He inched along the back of the wall, Shawn’s laboured breathing echoing loudly in his mind._

_He’d hardly taken note of the gun being pointed at him and the unfamiliar uniform before he was firing off two shots that hit the mark, still concealed by the barrier._

_The sickening thump of the bodies hitting the ground was yet another sound filed away in his mind, one that would echo loudly in his mind for all the years to come._

Eddie’s eyes flew open from the nightmare, and he threw himself off the bed, breathing hard. His entire body was shaking and trembling, absolutely sure that he was still in Afghanistan. The tremors that wracked his body felt like they were making the entire house shake as he cowered on the floor.

All around him he could hear gunfire, grenades being set off, the drag of wheels on sand, the scratch of their combat boots against the ground. There was a weight on his back that felt suspiciously like the rifle he’d fired off.

The only difference was Buck’s voice. Eddie clung to the sound and tried to dispel the hell that coated his mind. 

“Eddie, can you hear me?” He followed the sound to see a hazy silhouette in the doorway. It took him a second to realize that the haziness was from his vision completely blocked by the tears that weren’t stopping. “Can I come closer to you?”

He may have been out of it, but he knew that the shadow belonged to Buck. His Buck, the man who made his and his son’s life complete. His Buck, who was waiting carefully at the door so his proximity didn’t trigger Eddie even more so.

In an action that was uncharacteristic for him, Eddie let a choked sob fall from his lips as he reached out for the younger man with both hands, just like a child. Instantly, Buck was on the ground with him, pressing his hands against Eddie’s shoulders to keep him from dissociating completely.

“Eddie, I need you to focus on me, okay? You are in Los Angeles, in your home.” His voice sounded like they were underwater as he spoke softly to him. Briefly, Eddie wondered if the liquid rushing through his ears was actually water instead of blood, threatening to drag him under.

“Buck.” The syllable came out strangled. Eddie channeled his mind to focus on the heat of Buck’s palms instead of the heat of the desert. His sleep shirt stuck to his skin in patches.

“That’s it, sweetheart. Deep breaths.” Buck modeled a pattern for him, and Eddie tried his best to follow it, even though it felt like he was choking on invisible dust. His mouth and nose felt as dry as the sand that had whipped around them, just as Shawn’s life had bled out in his hands.

Eddie had had to protect him. He couldn’t have let his friend die unable to defend himself, when the enemy was so close to confronting both of them. Shawn held his pride and honor above all else, and faced with two decisions, he’d had to make the one Shawn had encouraged him to.

He’d been the one to personally deliver Shawn’s letter to his wife. Millie had taken it gracefully, without any hint of blame for Eddie not being able to save her husband. She knew her husband, she had known that he would die with his honor intact. Her words that day went a long way in helping Eddie forgive himself.

_"Shawn served his country with everything he had, and I know you did your absolute best to save him, Eddie. This isn't your fault. I am proud of him, and of you."_

Yet...

It didn’t help the heavy weight of guilt that weighed him down every time he looked back on his Army days. Not even the convoy he’d been faced with pressed so heavily on his mind as losing Shawn had, and that wasn’t because he’d personally known the man. It was because he’d taken a choice that led to Shawn’s death.

“There’s blood here.” Eddie raised his hands to the man in front of him, taking note of the trembling in his fingers. His hands looked red to him, blackened blood crusted under and around his fingernails. There was soot that coated the veins that held _his_ life. “There’s blood here.”

The repeated sentence came out frantic and almost like a scream. “There’s blood here, Buck, get it off me, _Buck._ ” He was sobbing hysterically now, scrubbing at his own hands with his nails and scratching patterns into the skin.

Buck caught his wrists gently. From somewhere that Eddie didn’t quite understand, the younger man started cleaning his hands patiently with a cold wipe. The initial surprise was enough to pull Eddie from the swamping hysteria. 

That one imagery was enough for Eddie to focus on as he cried freely, eyes tracking the wipe that was cleaning the flashback away from him. His harsh breathing and whimpers resonated through the room, along with Buck’s comforting murmurs.

“Look, all clean.” Buck traced his own hands over Eddie’s, the touch cleansing this much at least. "Can I pick you up?"

Eddie gave a jerky nod, not even giving a second thought to the possibility that he might be heavy. The younger man gathered Eddie's trembling body in his arms, easily lifting him back to the bed. Buck sat right in front of him, giving Eddie his space. 

“Buck,” he repeated. He clawed at his pants, now feeling the burn of scar tissue on his hip. He’d been caught in the line of fire but the bullet had only grazed his hip enough to leave a slightly raised scar. 

Now, that scar was burning as if he’d just been shot. “Buck, I’ve been shot. Buck, look at this, I’m _bleeding_.” 

Desperation and mania painted his tone red and black, his anxiety skyrocketing as he looked at the scar. He didn’t see the now-healed skin, he saw a deep wound of a slash through the flesh. 

Buck responded quickly to the flashback. Gentle fingers on Eddie’s jaw helped bring Eddie’s attention away from his hip.

“You are at home.” His words were firm, urging. “Can you describe your surroundings to me?”

Eddie’s mind felt murky, the flashback clinging to him like cobwebs. Ironic, because cobwebs would've symbolized an untouched memory, but this was a recurring one, one that his mind somehow couldn't stop relieving over and over again.

Yet, he tried to answer Buck’s question, keeping his eyes on the man he _knew_ he loved just as much as he loved his son.

“They’re blue. Grey sometimes too. When you’re happy, they’re a bright blue.” Buck looked slightly confused but as soon as he realized what Eddie was talking about, he went with the flow.

“What about when I’m mad?”

“They look like hurricanes.” Eddie lifted a shaking hand to trace Buck’s birthmark. “A storm that would wreck everything in its path.”

“What about when I’m worried?” Just like that, Buck ran through a list of emotions with him, each slipping a piece of him back into place and by the time they’d hit the emotion of excitement, Eddie had finally managed to shake off the flashback.

The relieved look on Buck’s face told him that he saw the alertness in Eddie’s exhausted eyes. Eddie closed his eyes as he rested his forehead on Buck’s chest.

The hours in the gym were clearly paying off because Buck’s sheer size made Eddie feel protected. His broad shoulders swamped Eddie's figure completely, hiding him from all the demons that had seized him tonight. Eddie buried his face in Buck’s shirt, trying to hide away from the noises that were still echoing in his head as a result of the lingering anxiety.

Buck’s lips fluttered over his head tentatively, taking all of his attention with the action and silencing his mind. As his heart settled back into its normal rhythm and his breathing returned to normal, Eddie moved his arms so they draped around Buck’s waist.

He remembered Buck in this position from a few weeks ago, how he’d buried his face into Eddie’s stomach as if he could live there. Now it was Buck’s fingers smoothing the bumps of his spine, his arms clutching him closer as Eddie slumped against him.

_Safe_

That was the word Buck had used nearly three weeks ago. Three weeks of them exploring the tormenting energy that had plagued them ever since Eddie’s first day at the station two years ago. Three weeks of them learning to find a new middle ground, where their emotional safety wasn’t compromised in any given way. They'd been healing on their own for so long, but now that they had each other...it was the final five-percent to the finish line.

Buck made him feel safe too.

“You okay?” Buck asked after a while, the poorly-concealed worry jumping out. Eddie didn’t know how much time had passed, but it sure felt like hours.

“I am now.” His voice felt like it was being sliced across a grater. 

“You want to talk about it?”

“Not tonight.” Eddie didn’t usually talk about his nightmares right after them, because it was much more likely that he’d get pulled right back into another flashback. They were conversations for his therapy sessions or for the morning-after. True to his nature, Buck let Eddie take what he needed but didn’t push him. “Where’d you go?” 

“I was with Christopher, remember?” Christopher had insisted that Buck sleep over in his room tonight. “I heard you moving around and came to check on you.”

He hated that he’d taken Buck from his sleep. As if reading his thoughts, Buck added, “I wasn’t asleep, I’d just gone to the bathroom.”

Eddie hummed, the two of them falling silent. Blissfully, his recovery time from the flashbacks had lessened after taking to his PTSD therapist. Before, it’d take hours for him to fall back to sleep, but now, he could usually manage to talk himself down in enough time to get a few more hours in. And when Buck was there, it was always easier. “Where did the wipes come from?”

“I kept them in here after last time.” His boyfriend stated the words simply, as if it weren’t a big deal. But to Eddie, they meant the world to have this man with a heart of pure gold care so thoroughly for _him_. He lifted his head from where it was buried in Buck’s torso to press a kiss of gratitude to the corner of the other man’s mouth, his vision blurring again. “Thank you, my love.”

Buck smiled at him, eyes soft and dark in the light. Just like Eddie did to soothe him, he slipped his fingers into Eddie’s hair comfortingly, kissing him lightly. Eddie lowered his head back to his shoulder, eyes slipping closed at the inviting hearth.

"Have you come back to me?" Buck asked quietly, in the bubble that surrounded the two of them.

"I will always come back to you," he replied honestly. The truth felt like it was yanked straight from his heart to present to Buck on a golden platter.

"And I will _always_ wait for you." Buck sifted through the longer strands that had tangled themselves with sweat. "Whatever you were seeing, you have survived it, you got through it and made yourself stronger. And I am so proud of you for doing it."

The weight on Eddie's chest eased with each word laced in naked honesty. Not having the energy to lift his head again, he left a placating kiss of appreciation on the spot right above his heart.

“Tell me a story,” Eddie whispered sleepily as he shifted in his position. 

Buck’s chest rumbled with relieved laughter as he positioned the two of them so they were laying back in the bed, arms still tight around one another. Eddie lay sprawled on top of the other man who was still cradling him to his torso. 

It was just like Buck to easily take all the weight Eddie couldn’t carry anymore. The one person he could always lean on, without any conditions.

“One Christmas, during one of my parents’ annual parties, a friend and I were in charge of setting up the refreshment table. Naturally, a Christmas table had to have eggnog, right? So, we decided to sneak a mugful each.”

“Are you telling me you got drunk underage?” Eddie’s lips curved into a slight smile as he imagined a teenage Evan Buckley sneaking a Santa-decorated mug filled with the sweet liquid. 

“We didn’t mean to,” Buck defended himself. “We had no idea that it was spiked at all, let alone so strongly. Then later, we ended up not even attending the party because we were so drunk.”

Now that Eddie came to think of it, he’d never seen Buck drunk before. He voiced this right now, tone heavy and eyelids drooping with exhaustion.

As sleep loomed over him, he heard Buck snort just as a large hand smoothed over the back of his head, fingers carding protectively through dark strands. “Trust me, you’re not missing anything.”

He hummed in response as his world went blissfully dark.

**Author's Note:**

> How was that? Thank you for reading! 
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr at [zeethebooknerd](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/zeethebooknerd) or on Twitter at [tkreyesevandiaz](https://twitter.com/tkreyesevandiaz).


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